


wasted (our lives) away

by down2thebone (aisu10)



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: Bioluminescence, Gen, I really have no idea how to tag this one, Skeletons, and also glows, close enough, miguel stays transparent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 09:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13544835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/pseuds/down2thebone
Summary: miguel learns to survive, and then thrive, after he returns from the land of the dead with his bones still visible.





	wasted (our lives) away

 

it doesn’t go away.

  
miguel thought, when he woke up in the land of the living after the marigold’s glow engulfed his fading body and restarted his failing heart, that he would no longer see his skeleton. that when he lifted his hands to shield himself from the sun’s morning rays filtering through the crypt’s windows, the light wouldn’t seep right through them and cast the slatted shadows of his metacarpals across his face. but he was wrong, and a terrified yelp escapes him as he looks down at himself and sees all his bones glinting back at him through a thin haze of transparent skin.  
  
there’s no time to take the damage in here, no time if he wants héctor to _survive_ , so dizzily he forces himself to stand and takes off through the graveyard, the streets, the family courtyard, hood up and héctor’s guitar clutched tightly in one skeletal hand. he can feel the horrified stares of his family burning into his bones but he pushes past them to play héctor’s song for mama coco (who, bless her, doesn’t notice a single thing wrong with him). as soon as he’s done it, as soon as she remembers and héctor’s story is shared, miguel collapses into his mother’s arms in bittersweet relief. taking his face in her hands, she runs her trembling fingers over the visible ridges of his cheekbones and asks him in a haunted whisper,  
  
“mijo, what _happened_ to you?”  
  
—  
  
at first miguel can hardly look at himself, and his parents can even less. for days his mother weeps at just the sight of him, unable to bear the pain of looking at her son’s face and meeting the nightmarish hollows behind his eyes. his dad clenches his jaw and does everything he can to avoid looking at his son’s new skeletal form, treating him as if he’s already fully disappeared.

  
miguel begins to feel ashamed of himself, naked and exposed in his own treacherous skin. he covers up with long sleeves and pants, hoodies and a pair of bicycle gloves his father lent him. a bit of bronze concealer works well to restore the color to his face and hide the angles of his cheekbones, but the more he covers himself up, the less like himself he feels. though all this might make him _look_ as normal as he did before, he knows he’s far from it. faded as he is, he can’t even tell if he’s dead or alive or somewhere in between. nothing makes sense. he can feel his heart beating, but he can’t see it inside the empty ribcage that shifts within his chest. he can draw blood from a cut in his transparent flesh, but finds no veins tied around his bones. his skin is there — still warm, still soft, still preventing him from reaching inside himself and touching any of the bones he can see — but it’s nearly invisible, just a shimmering outline surrounding his skeletal form. will it disappear completely, one day? will _he?_ the thought terrifies him. maybe he had left the land of the dead too late to make a full recovery. maybe he never will.  
  
—  
  
his disguise is good enough to leave the house in, but miguel ends up staying indoors more often than not anyway to avoid the prying eyes the townspeople, and most importantly, his own frightened family. it feels as if things have only gotten worse than they were before his journey to the land of the dead. now, not only is he hiding his music, he’s hiding _himself._ he spends most of his time alone in his room, lying in bed and plucking at his guitar, his only comfort, with bare bony fingers. this is the only place he feels safe leaving his hands exposed, and, eventually, the the only place he can he finally muster the courage to shed the rest of his clothes and start to come to terms with what he’s become.  
  
standing in front of his mirror, miguel traces down his sternum and up his spine with one skeletal finger, just trying to get used to the sight and shape of each of the bones inside him. he doesn’t know all their names so he numbers them instead, counting each of his ribs and the crowded bones of his wrists and pinching his translucent cheeks to make sure they’re still there.  
  
somewhere in the process of his self-examination, miguel notices that when he inhales as deep as he can, stretching his curved ribs to their furthest extent, a faint ball of light begins to form in the space his lungs used to occupy. it seems to take their shape, growing and shrinking as he breathes and then coalescing into a beaming glow between them, marigold-yellow and pulsing with life right where his heart should be. tiny rivers of light spread outward from that central point, weaving all throughout his skeleton and showing him the paths in which his otherwise invisible blood runs. it’s a little _weird_ to be able to perceive his organs moving in these bright flickers, but he isn’t fully spooked until the glow creeps downward into his stomach and illuminates the tangled lines of his intestines cupped between his hipbones. thoroughly disturbed, he dives into his bed and hides from himself for the rest of the day. but this doesn’t stop him from trying it again and again, and slowly he comes to appreciate these fleeting glimpses at his inner workings, taking them as a comforting reminder that he’s more than just a collection of bones. he finds himself smiling when, even while disguised, he can see the glow through the layers of his clothes, his heart soaring when he sings to himself and and each note illuminates the guitar against his chest. the brighter he shines, the less worried he is about fading away.  
  
one day he forgets all about hiding himself and walks into the kitchen with his shirt off, absentmindedly tracing the glittering thread of his brachial artery down the side of his exposed humerus, and his mother gasps as if she’s seen a ghost. suddenly feeling naked again, miguel rushes back to his room to cocoon himself in blankets and sweaters, glad his transparent skin no longer showcases the dark blush that otherwise would have painted his cheeks.  
  
—  
  
that night, miguel leaves his room shirtless again while his family is asleep and wanders through the house in the dark until he finds a window through which the moon shines. standing before it for a long stretch of time, he lets his bones soak in the silver glow, for once allowing himself to admire how they reflect the light through his skin. inspired by the sight, he then closes the shutters and shrouds himself in darkness again, only to take a deep breath and illuminate himself from the inside instead.  
  
slowly the light fills his ribcage, and with it, the room, casting a faint golden glow on the closed window beside him and the rug underneath. the light doesn’t reach very far, but he thinks he can make it. it dulls slightly upon exhale but he inhales deeper in response, bringing his heartbeat to brilliant throbbing life behind his ribs. he holds his breath and the glow spreads throughout his body, highlighting each of his missing organs like the anatomy posters in his science class until his lungs scream to deflate and the light fades again with the expiration of his breath. but each time he inhales again the light comes back stronger, _brighter,_ and determinedly he swells his chest as if he could challenge the moon with his glow. stoked by each breath, his reverberant shine fills the room, bouncing off the ceiling, the walls, the faces of his family in the picture frames that hang off them — and most importantly, it fills _him,_ fills all his empty spaces with blazing light.  
  
it’s not the same as before. but for a moment, he’s not see-through. standing there emitting a glow so _radiant_ he thinks it could be seen from the land of the dead, he can almost forget he ever was at all. he decides there and then that he’s not going to let himself waste his life away hiding. he’s not going to fade. he’s going to _shine._

__

__  


**Author's Note:**

> ...yeah, okay, this is definitely a weird fic. it's based on [my favorite music video ("wastin' time" by the shoes)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrsZojCJ2OI), which i highly recommend watching. it might make this make a little bit more sense, but probably not much. i just really like glowing guts, okay?
> 
> anyway, thanks for reading, and if you like this then check out my coco [twitter](http://twitter.com/down2thebone_/) for more musings and artwork!!


End file.
